Cataloging and digitizing ca. 2,000 administrative documents dating around 500 B.C. from Persepolis, the chief imperial residence of the Achaemenid kings in the homeland of the ancient Persian Empire.
Since 2006, the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project has conducted an emergency program to record tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments with texts in several languages and with the impressions of thousands of seals, a unique archive from the heart of the Achaemenid Persian empire at its zenith, about 500 BC. Access to these tablets in danger because of a lawsuit against the government of Iran; the digital images, catalogs, text editions, and drawings that the Project compiles and distributes online will preserve the archive's contents for scholars and the public in perpetuity.

Cataloging and digitization of administrative documents from Persepolis, the chief imperial residence of the Achaemenid kings in the homeland of the ancient Persian Empire.
This proposal seeks funding to support key personnel of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, an emergency program conducted since 2006 to record the texts and seal impressions on tens of thousands of clay tablets, a unique but imperiled archive from the heart of the Persian Empire at its height, C. 500 B.C.

Cataloging and digitizing administrative documents dating from 500 B.C. from Persepolis, the chief imperial residence of the Achaemenid kings in the homeland of the ancient Persian Empire.
In 1933, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments at Persepolis, the palace complex of the Achaemenid Persian kings in Iran. They proved to be records of a regional administration from the imperial palaces in the years around 500 BC. The Persepolis Fortification Archive is a unique source for the languages, art, history, society, and institutions of ancient Iran and is in danger of being lost due to recent political and legal disputes. This project is conducting an accelerated program of recording the Archive, both texts and seal impressions. The Project uses several forms of electronic imaging, and co-ordinates the several kinds of information to be recorded with a suite of on-line tools for managing and presenting archaeological and textual data in a common environment. The results are to be distributed both in electronic form, on a continuous basis, via both the web, and in conventional printed form.